Censorship on campus?
By Onkar Ghate
web posted September 9, 2002
The terrorist attacks of September 11, according to many
college professors, have claimed another victim: free speech on
campus. They contend that a chilling climate has arisen, in which
they hesitate to voice ideas critical of America for fear of
reprimand by university officials.
At the University of Texas, for instance, when the administration
criticized a professor for accusing America of terrorism, his
colleague described the faculty's reaction: "There was a very
clear message that if you stick your neck out, [the
administration] will disown you." Blaming a nationwide climate,
the general secretary of the American Association of University
Professors (AAUP) said a "distrust of intellectuals has always
lurked beneath the surface of American popular opinion. Now it
has begun to leak out again." AAUP's director of public policy
claims there "are some things here that harken back to
McCarthyism."
We must, the professors insist, return to the day when a
professor could express any view, no matter how unpopular.
But in reality the professors are concerned not with defending
free speech--but with retaining control over the universities.
Freedom of speech is an individual's right to express ideas
without coercive interference from the government. Free speech
does protect an individual who voices unpopular ideas, but it
does not require that others support him. If an individual wants
others to finance the expression of his ideas, he must seek their
voluntary agreement. To force another person to support ideas
he opposes violates his freedom of speech.
A journalist, for instance, has the freedom to write what he
pleases but has no right to demand that Time magazine publish
it. That decision belongs to the head of Time. Similarly, a
professor has the freedom to teach any view he wishes but has
no right to demand that Harvard employ him. That decision
belongs to the head (or governing body) of Harvard. Freedom
of speech is not the right of a Ph.D. to have others provide him
with a university classroom.
Yet that is precisely what these professors are demanding.
They maintain that no matter how much the trustees of a
university disagree with a professor's views, they should not be
able to fire him. The owners of a university are to be stripped of
their right to choose which ideas their wealth supports. Why?
So that professors who consistently teach the evil of
individualism, capitalism, the profit motive--and America--can
espouse their views without the burden of having to seek the
voluntary consent of those forced to sponsor them.
Under the guise of championing free speech, therefore, these
leftist professors are actually demanding its destruction (which is
consistent with their advocacy of speech codes and "sensitivity
training" on campuses).
What makes them think they can get away with this?
Most universities today are public institutions. Critics of the
academic left have been calling for the firing of professors who
broadcast anti-American ideas, since such views are odious to
most taxpayers. But subjecting speech to majority rule, the left
correctly argues, obliterates freedom of speech. Thus, it
concludes, we must leave college professors alone.
This is a false conclusion. The truth is that public education as
such is antithetical to free speech. Whether leftists are forced to
pay taxes to fund universities from which their academic
spokesmen are barred, or non-leftists are forced to pay taxes to
fund professors who condemn America as a terrorist nation,
someone loses the right to choose which ideas his money
supports.
To protect free speech, therefore, universities would have to be
privatized. The owners of a university could then hire the faculty
they endorsed, while others could refuse to fund the university if
they disagreed with its teachings. But since privatization would
threaten the left's grip on the universities, it vehemently opposes
this solution. In the name of free speech, the left denounces as
"tyranny of the almighty dollar" the sole means of actually
preserving free speech.
So we must not be fooled by the professors' cries about threats
to their freedom of speech. Freedom is precisely what they
don't want. Their grumblings are simply smokescreens to
prevent us from seeing that we are right in objecting to being
forced to finance their loathsome ideas.
Onkar Ghate, Ph.D. in philosophy, is a resident fellow at the Ayn
Rand Institute (www.aynrand.org) in Irvine, CA. The Institute
promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand, author of Atlas Shrugged
and The Fountainhead. Send comments to
reaction@aynrand.org.
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